A German woman reacting to the vicious gang rape of a 15-year-old by ten predominately migrant men is set to spend a weekend behind bars for alleged “hate postings” made over WhatsApp to one of the attackers.
The gang rape was perpetrated in September 2020 in a prominent public park in Hamburg, with the ten men, ranging from 16 to 20 years old, taking advantage of the teen’s inebriated state and the lack of witnesses due to ongoing lockdown measures.
The nature of the gang rape, as well as the fact it was organized over a group chat, attracted particular horror in the courtroom and the popular press.
German press reports that five of the ten men were non-German nationals, including from Afghanistan and Syria, with all of the attackers of non-German extraction. Only one of the men found guilty at the trial was given a prison sentence—of two years and nine months. The rest of the attackers were given mild community service and suspended sentences.
A juvenile court in Hamburg received intense online criticism for the judicial decision to give nine out of the ten men non-custodial sentences. In the wake of the sentences, one of the rapists was identified by name online, and his cell phone number circulated on the Snapchat app.
A 20-year-old woman, with no connection to either the victim or the perpetrators, admitted to police to sending threatening Whatsapp messages to one of the rapists. Among other things, she referred to him as a “dishonourable rapist pig” and a “disgusting freak,” asking him if he wasn’t ashamed when he looked in the mirror, and saying he wouldn’t be able to go anywhere “without getting a punch in the face.”
The public prosecutor described the woman’s messages as “a torrent of insults.” The 20-year-old expressed remorse and said she had vented her anger “without thinking twice” because she thought the rapist deserved it, but that she realised her actions didn’t “make anyone better.”
German authorities have announced that they are investigating 140 other individuals for ‘hate speech’ relating to the trial.
District judge Anne Meier-Göring, responsible for handing out the lenient sentences for the rapists, found herself praised in left-leaning German publications for her ruling, with one in particular referring to the judge’s ruling as a sign she was not to be “pressured by public opinion-making” and calling her “brave and smart.”
Hamburg’s judicial union came to Meier-Göring’s defence last year when she was the subject of online commentary with an “anti-immigrant tone” as the legal association denounced the rhetoric against the controversial judge as an attack on the “rule of law.’
An influx of millions of non-European migrants from the Middle East and North Africa has radically transformed the nature of crime in Germany, with authorities in the same city of Hamburg where the gang rape happened shooting dead an axe-wielding Islamist during a football event last week. As we reported earlier this week, the Berlin police commissioner said in an interview that a majority of violent crimes in her city are committed by young migrant men.
